1. Life.
FRONTINUS.
He was praetor urbanus 70 A.D., and in 75 succeeded Cerealis as governor oi Britain, where, as Tacitus tells us, he distinguished himself by the conquest of the Silures: sustinuit molem Iulius Frontinus, vir magnus, quantum licebat, validamque et pugnacem Siturum gentem armis subegit: ‘Julius Frontinus was equal to the burden, a great man as far as greatness was then possible (i.e. under the jealous rule of Domitian), who subdued by his arms the powerful and warlike tribe of the Silures.’
In 97 he was nominated curator aquarum, administrator of the aqueducts of Rome: the closing years of his life were passed in studious retirement at his villa on the Bay of Naples. Cf. Mart. X. lviii.
2. Works.
Two works of his are extant:—
(1) De Aquis Urbis Romae.—A treatise on the Roman water-supply, published under Trajan, soon after the death of Nerva, 97 A.D.; a complete and valuable account.
(2) Strategemata.—A manual of strategy, in three books, consisting of historical examples derived chiefly from Sallust, Caesar, and Livy.
3. Style.
Simple and concise: ‘he shuns the conceits of the period and goes back to the republican authors, of whom (and especially of Caesar’s Commentaries) his language strongly reminds us.’—Cruttwell.